


ruinous

by thegirl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dark, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Miscarriage, Oneshot, Spoiler: Jon was the miscarriage and thus doesn't exist, This is just sad af really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 21:33:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10369917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirl/pseuds/thegirl
Summary: Lyanna has a late stage miscarriage, but survives.In the eyes of Westeros, the woman the king wants to marry is ruined. In Ned's eyes, his sister is broken in a different way.





	

Ned doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to forget the first time he’d seen his sister since her abduction. She’d looked so small, so- Ned knows what they’re saying about her, and he’ll never think like them, but the girl he’d known was gone, had disappeared, was _ruined._ Ruined. That was all anyone seems to be talking about anymore - how Lyanna Stark had been ruined by Rhaegar Targaryen, the Last Dragon.

They meant in terms of her maidenhead. Ned meant that it was hard not to see how shattered she had become, the reflections of her hardship reflected in her big, grey eyes.

“Can we go home now?” She’d asked, voice thin and reedy, bottom lip trembling and tears coursing down her cheeks silently. At the time, he’d thought they were tears of relief at seeing him. Lya said they could have been, but she’d been crying for what felt like years by then, she says, so she didn’t know.

She’d lost a child late in a pregnancy - she was too young, too breakable, too afraid. She said she had thought she was going to die - the kingsguard hadn’t gotten a wetnurse, or a midwife, as they’d thought it was too early on, and she’d been all alone in a bloody bed giving birth to a dead child.

“He was so tiny,” she told him “So little, he fit in the palm of my hand no trouble at all. His skin was see through, I could see all his tiny veins and tiny nails. My baby, Ned. His skin was cold, like ice though down here I feared he’d be like fire. But he was mine, Ned. A child of the North. Mine. He never lived, and when Rhaegar- when Rhaegar heard, he just said I could get pregnant a-ah- _again._ He wanted a girl. That was why, this entire fucking war, he wanted a Visenya, a girl, he was obsessed about a prophecy.

“They didn’t even let me bury him. I couldn’t go outside in case I was seen. They took him- they took him from me. He had begun to smell by then, they said, but I don’t think he did. He was- my baby, Ned. Tell me you’ll find him for me, please Ned. Promise me. Promise me, Ned.”

And what was Ned to say to that? So he promised. And some of the fear went out of his sister’s eyes.

It had been several months since Lya went into labour, but he and Howland found the grave soon enough. Obviously the Kingsguard were not carpenters, but even Ned knew what the Seven Pointed Star made from twigs looked like.

The body was in a box, probably meant for holding gloves, but instead it became a prince’s coffin. Ned reminded himself this was his nephew, but he couldn’t bring himself to open the coffin and look at the tiny corpse. He was too weak, and he didn’t know how much his heart could take.

When Lyanna had seen it, she had fallen to the floor, reaching out for what remained of her only child with weak arms. All the way to the Red Keep, she hadn’t taken her eyes off of it. On the third day she’d stopped crying and spent half the time just slumped against her brother, her breathing in time with when Ned stroked her hair.

* * *

 

“A child.” Robert’s voice is raw.

Ned nods, weariness dogging his every movement “Yes, your grace.”

“Don’t,” Robert says, reflexively “Not you, Ned. Not her. Oh gods, a child.”

“The babe was delivered too early, and was born dead.” Ned knows how mechanical he must sound, but he cannot find any emotion in himself except pure agony he’s been squashing down since his father and Brandon’s deaths, in this very room “Lyanna was-“ he swallows “Lyanna is devastated. Rhaegar apparently told her that he could just get her pregnant again, and she was not allowed to bury him.”

“Bastard. _Bastard!”_ Robert shouts, his voice ringing around the throne room. He walks over to a wall, and punches it. Bits of stone dust filter down to the floor. “Gods, Ned. Is the- the body. They said-”

“She asked me to find it for her. I did. I believe she wishes him to be buried in Winterfell, beneath the Weirwood. It was her favourite place as a child, and it is our custom to send unborn children to be with the gods.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Fucking Rhaegar Targaryen.”

“He’s dead now.” Ned reminds his friend “You killed him.”

“I want to kill him again,” Robert spits “And I want to do it properly. I want to make him suffer, I want to burn his fucking heart out, I want to crush each of his bones one at a time. How _dare_ he.”

Ned cannot say, in that moment, he doesn’t wish to do the same.

* * *

 

Lyanna is resting when Ned comes back from a meeting of the Lords of the Realm, and when he opens the door she can hear the new king’s enraged shouts.

“Ned, dearest,” she says, her voice still thin but a little stronger than when she had been rescued from the Tower of Joy “What has happened?”

Her brother sighs and sits down, lacing his fingers together.

“Robert’s supporters believe, that considering you have been-” his mouth twists, as if trying to find a word that doesn’t make him want to throw up when he says it in relation to his own sister “Considering you are... impure.”

“Impure?” Lyanna says, confused.

“The new king needs a queen. They argue that you are no longer suitable, because-”

“I no longer have my maidenhead.” Lyanna finishes for him, her voice barely louder than a whisper, a thousand thoughts spinning around her head.

Ned swallows and nods, fury building in the set of his shoulders.

“It’s complete shit,” Ned tells her, and Lyanna can’t contain a startled little laugh at her solemn older brother cursing.

“They want their daughters to be queen,” Lyanna tells him “And I am sure they want it more than I. I want to go home, Ned. I want to bury my son, I want to mourn for the child I gave birth to but never held. I want to recover from every touch that Rhaegar laid on my skin. I never want to leave Winterfell again. I know I would be a burden on you and your wife-”

“You would _never_ be a burden,” Ned swears, fiercely.

Lyanna is shocked for a moment, and suddenly tears rise in her dark eyes. “Do you mean that?” she whispers “Tell me you mean that. Please, Ned.”

“I mean it,” he says “I have lost too much, as have you. I want to go home, I want to meet my son, I want to get to know my wife, I want to tell Benjen that it’s all over, I want to keep you safe.”

“What...what about Robert?”

Ned swallows. Robert. He doesn’t even know what to think about Robert. He is his best friend, his brother in all but blood, but Lyanna is his sister, Ben is his brother, and Robert has allowed the murder of children. On Lyanna’s bedside table, the makeshift coffin sits. The maids have tried to cover up the smell with perfumes and flowers, but it stinks of death.

“Robert can take care of himself,” Ned says, finally. “He doesn’t need me. Not like you and Ben and Cat and Robb do.”

“Robb? Is that your son’s name?” Lya asks.

“Yes,” Ned confirms, feeling as if his heart will burst at the shattered look in Lyanna’s eyes.

“My son... Rhaegar wanted a girl. If we had a girl, her name would have been Visenya. But he was a boy, and Rhaegar never said about a boy. He would have wanted some other Targaryen name, like Jaehaerys or Aemon but my son... he would have a northern name, he would be a northern boy. More mine than he was ever Rhaegar’s. Jon, like the Stark king.”

For a moment, Ned can almost see them. Robb Stark and Jon Targaryen – little boys, one with Cat’s look and his long face, and the other with Lyanna’s bright grin and dark eyes. In another life, his and Lyanna’s sons could have been like brothers. But he blinks, and the dream fades – broken before it began.

“Then let’s take your northern boy home,” he says in a raw voice, and Lyanna nods empathetically with tears in her eyes, and without thinking Ned pulls her into a tight embrace.

That is the moment that Ned can hear his father’s voice, as if the old wolf is standing right next to him: _when the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives._


End file.
